New Horizons for Soil Survey on PublicLand
West Region Soil Survey Conference, June 2004
Bill Ypsilantis
USDI-BLM
NationalScience & TechnologyCenter
P.O. Box 25047
Bldg. 50, DenverFederalCenter
Denver, Colorado80225-0047
(303) 236-3404
Sarah McCall
USDI-BLM
NationalScience & TechnologyCenter
P.O. Box 25047
Bldg. 50, DenverFederalCenter
Denver, Colorado80225-0047
(303) 236-0154
Abstract
This report details the status of soil surveys on public lands and the use of soil information by BLM. The Bureau has established various management priorities that have immeasurable needs for soil survey information. There is a need for the use of use of advanced technology to map the soils of the West. One of the most important aspects of soil survey is in the presentation and use of information.
Introduction
The BLM manages 264 million acres of public lands throughout the U.S. With such a vast jurisdiction of land to manage, the land must be prioritized.Soil survey information is used to assign management priorities to public lands. A working knowledge of soil survey data is a crucial element of land management as the underlying soil forms the platform of land usage. Thus, access to accurate information on soils is an integral aspect of managing the public lands. With limited funding and personnel, it is important to coordinate efforts to conduct soil surveysand make effective use of soil survey information.This report describes the Bureau management priorities, soil survey needs, and advanced technologies for future use in soil surveying.
Bureau Management Priorities
The Bureau’s management priorities have evolved somewhat over the past few years. Energy and mineral exploration and development continue to be high priority issues. Sagebrush habitat restoration is becoming increasingly important as potential listing of sage-grouse as an endangered species looms on the horizon. Providing recreational opportunities on public lands is growing proportionally with demand. The Healthy Forest Initiative is being promoted as a way to return natural function to forest ecosystems. Maintaining clean water and an adequate supply of water is being highlighted in the Bureau. Efforts are ongoing to ensure sustainable rangelands through NEPA analysis during permit renewal, monitoring rangeland condition, and efforts to curb the rapid spread of invasive species. All these priorities have strong needs for quality soil information.
Soil Survey Needs
Soil survey accomplishments have been modest in the past year, but there are some promising developments. Nevada has been the most active state with over 480,000 acres mapped in fiscal year 2003 and 280,000 acres scheduled to be mapped inLincolnCounty in 2004. California has also mapped almost 280,000 acres in fiscal year 2003. The North Lake County Survey, Oregon has field mapping completed and NASIS input is being provided by NRCS. Wyoming is conducting some field testing of new mapping technology, and Montana, Arizona, Utah, and Idaho have mapped modest acreages of public lands.
An assessment was completed in 2002 of BLM rangeland soil survey needs for a report to Congress. It clearly indicated that the land acreage being mapped in many states is much less than what is required to complete initial soil surveys of unmapped rangeland in a reasonable 10 year time period. In fact, the rate at which the unmapped land is being surveyed is lower than the rate at which the previously surveyed land is becoming outdated in most states, so we are actually losing ground.
Opportunities for the Future
The biggest opportunities for soil survey lie in some of the innovative approaches that have been tried or are being considered in some of the states in the West. Wyoming has been very aggressive in adopting and developing advanced technology approaches to soil mapping. Nephi Cole, Wyoming NRCS soil scientist, is working in NorthJohnsonCounty using GIS and remote sensing data layers to develop a knowledge-based model that predicts soil-landscape relationships. The model has been field tested and has proved very useful for the soil survey. This is a pilot project and one of the first efforts to use this type model on a production soil survey. Amy Saunders, NRCS soil scientist, is developing a classification and regression tree (CART) – based model to predict soil-landscape relationships in the Pinedale area. We are very excited about the possibilities of this pioneering effort. Both these efforts are being conducted through a Cooperative Ecosystem Study Unit contract with Janis Boettinger, UtahStateUniversity soil professor, and a NRCS soil survey contract.
David, Howell, CaliforniaNRCS soil scientist has conducted statistical analysis of predictive modeling of soil properties for the BLM’s Johnson Valley OHV area near Victorville, California. David described soil properties from stratified random sample points and conducted statistical analysis of the correlation of specific soil properties to predicted locations of those properties on the landscape in cooperation with HumboldtStateUniversity.
Corey Myer, Utah NRCS soil scientist is interested in using LandMapper to conduct predictive soil mapping in Beaver County, Utah. This would be the first use of this model in semi-arid environments and should provide some valuable insights into how it performs in this part of the world. Lisa Bryant, Utah BLM soil lead, is also hoping to obtain funding to contract with Janis Boettinger to provide some other methods of predictive modeling in a comparable watershed in BeaverCounty. This will provide some basis for comparison of techniques.
Heidi Hadley, BLM salinity coordinator, provided funding for a study using remote sensing to detect salinity source areas in the San Rafael Swell area in Utah. The Colorado River Salinity forum is funding this project and is very interested in the capabilities to map salinity sources in the ColoradoRiver Basin using remote sensing.
Chad McGrath, Oregon NRCS State Soil Scientist, has indicated a keen interest in use of advanced technology to map the soils on public lands in Malheur County, Oregon. This is a vast area with limited access;using advanced technology to predict soil-landscape relationships would improve the efficiency of the survey and speed up the time needed to complete the survey.
I am a very strong proponent of using advanced technology for soil surveys. BLM can notfinancethe projected cost to conduct soil surveys on public lands. We also need the most reliable data possible in a digital format. The current field level work to enhance soil survey efforts requires greater support than they have received to date. The exciting part of these efforts is that the knowledge is being institutionalized within NRCS and the soil-landscape relationships are currently being documented more thoroughly than in previous years.
Advanced Technology
Innovative methodologies are being used to map soils using advanced technology. Digital proxy layers are identified for the soil forming factors that make up the traditional soil scientists’ conceptual models. These proxies are then used in a manual heads-up digitizing mode, layer stacked and used in both unsupervised and supervised classification, and finally proxies are used to develop a knowledge-based model for automated raster classification to create soil premap products.
Training
The BLM continues to support sending students to the Soil Science Institute. We have had some difficulties finding students in the past couple years, but I am confident that this will improve in the coming years.
I am proud of the Advanced Technology in Soil Mapping course taught at the BLM training center. We led our first pilot course in March and we received very positive feedback. The collaborative efforts of the BLM, NRCS, NPS, USFS, and UtahStateUniversity in course development and instruction have been very gratifying. Students are recruited from all the agencies involved with the hope that the course will foster greater use of advanced technology in soil surveys in the U.S.
The WEPP erosion prediction on rangeland and forestland course has been taught for the past five years and has been very successful. However, participation by NRCS has been very limited, and I encourage NRCS to look at the benefits of attending the course and using WEPP to model water erosion on rangeland and forestland.
Soil Survey Information Uses
One of the most important aspects of soil survey is how the information is presented and used. My goal is to have soil data viewer installed at all BLM field offices so that resource specialists with soil responsibilities or any resource specialist or manager can effortlessly obtain soil information and interpretations in a digital format.
There is a lack of rangeland interpretations available that are relevant to BLM management activities. I am in the process of developing some of these interpretations. My involvement in NSIAG has helped provide guidance on the most effective way to do this and document the interpretations so users can understand how they were developed and have confidence in their reliability. Thanks are in order for the assistance of Curtis Talbot, NSSC, NRCS state and field range and soil specialists who have promised assistance, and Sarah McCall, STEP student intern for BLM.
One of the subjects we are looking at is to develop new ways to present soil survey information. Pam Clemmer, remote sensing specialist at NSTC, and Pete Biggam have been working on presenting the Crater LakeNational Park soil survey in GEOBOOK®.
Using GEOBOOK® for Product Development
Space Imaging Corporation has developed the GEOBOOK® - an intuitive software tool that provides easy user access to GIS and geo-spatial data. GEOBOOK® offers a convenient, standardized method for GIS data distribution. Its book-like format provides a user-friendly interface for audiences with a range of GIS skill sets from the novice to the daily practitioner. Its embedded data access, querying and reporting functionality offers powerful mapping capabilities for everyone.
A stand-alone Windows-based application, GEOBOOK® is a customizable data distribution tool that is suitable for a variety of end-user requirements. GIS information is presented on pages in a book-like format, which are then organized logically into chapters.
Users can easily flip through the pages of the book to access images, maps and supporting content. Individual “books” can also be cataloged into a “library” so users can maintain a cohesive, coherent flow to all the data they need to distribute in GEOBOOK® format.
CONCLUSION
The budget for BLM continues to decline in real dollars as issues and land use conflicts on public lands increase. Thus, we need to be more imaginative in how we map soils and deliver soil information to customers.
There is a need for additional funding and personnel for soil survey and soil program support in order to fulfill the objectives and needs of resource specialists in the West. The BLM must work in close coordination with NCSS partners to develop standardized soil interpretations to be used by soil scientists, research specialists and land managers. Overall, we need to be innovative in our approaches to soil survey and soil information delivery.